A Life Camp Chief Magistrates’ Court in Abuja on Thursday sentenced a 22-year-old man, Aliyu Ahmed, to a term of one-year imprisonment for stealing a generator.

Mr Ahmed, a tiler who resides at Jabi Dakibiu in Abuja, was charged with one-count of stealing.

He pleaded guilty to the charge and begged the court for leniency.

The magistrate, Musa Jobbo, sentenced the convict to a term of one year at the correctional centre, without an option of a fine.

He warned him to desist from committing crime in the future.

The court held that the punishment would have been stiffer if the convict had not saved the court the rigours of a protracted prosecution.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Charity Nwachukwu, told the court that, the convict committed the offence on January 19, at about 5:00 a.m.

The prosecutor said that the convict was arrested when the police surveillance patrol team of Wuye police station were raiding black spots and criminal hideouts in Wuye.

Ms Nwachukwu said that while the raid was going on, the convict was arrested in one of the black spots, with a generator suspected to have been stolen.

According to the prosecutor, the generator is valued at N200,000.

They told the court that during police interrogation, the convict made a confessional statement that he actually stole the generator but intentionally refused to give the location from where it was stolen.

She said that the generator was consequently recovered from the convict.

The offence contravenes the provisions of section 287 of the Penal Code. 

(NAN)